The Life of George Frederick Handel

Beloved not only in Britain, George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) is admired as a composer the world over. His inventive and sensitive melodic genius and his exuberant brilliance in depicting the spectacular are best displayed in his Messiah and Zadok the Priest. Larger than life, Handel impressed all who met him and was adept at promoting his works, arranging for their publication and even selling them from his home in London's Brook Street. His dogged determination to triumph over the many reverses of his career and the fickle enthusiasms of the Georgian public is the stuff of three-volume novels. This sympathetic and highly readable biography by the composer and author William Smith Rockstro (1823–95) was first published in 1883. Wherever possible, autograph manuscripts have been consulted and the book contains the first detailed catalogue of Handel's output. Among other works, Rockstro's biography of Mendelssohn is also reissued in this series.